DRAIN YOU OF YOUR SANITY

[fakethulhu.livejournal.com]

WHO: The Emissary and co. versus everybody
WHERE: Off the coast of Battery Park and throughout the City
WHEN: Just before midnight October 31st (technically November 1st)
WARNINGS: Violence and frightening imagery
SUMMARY: Drawn by Illidan’s magic, a demon from beyond reality has come forth to help the Betrayer doom the world. The battle that saves or destroys everything has begun. Happy Halloween, Cityverse!
FORMAT: Paragraph to start, whatever works after.

It came.

The Moon of midnight on All Hallow’s Eve shone wetly on the waters of the City’s Harbour. From beneath the surface a rumbling could be heard, as though emanating far, far below, within abyssal depths and ancient fathoms that could not possibly be there. First there was a ripple, then a wave, then the creature began to arise from the waters. It slid upwards and upwards, rising smoothly and continuously out of the ocean like a living edifice, a vast Thing ancient and immovable, a walking island sunken no longer. The head then the shoulders then the wings then the misshapen body came forth, yet still more of Its bulk remained beneath the waters, with slow thighs beginning to move It towards the City. All around it the sky and the ocean seemed to darken with an almost positive quality, as though jet-black ink was spilling into the universe itself. The Emissary had come.

Water flowed off Its body in torrents, mixing with drool and ichor. An unending series of sickly slopping and slobbering noises came from the twitching forest of tentacles around Its mouth, the product of a ravening hunger. The ocean heaved immensely around the Titan form, waves thrashing from the power of Its body. How to describe such a thing? How to even conceive of such horror, outside of madness or nightmare? That immense octopus head crowning the terrible body, those dragon-bat wings sprouting from Its back, those rubbery, sea-green scales, the mingled and loathsome aspects of the reptile, the mollusc- and the human! For it was on two feet that It moved, and with two arms did the Emissary reach out toward the morsels It slavered for.

An aura of panic and despair announced It, greater than any herald’s trumpet. Merely to look upon that incomprehensible shape and its alien geometry was to gamble with one’s sanity. Its very presence emanated a sense of immeasurable insignificance and absence of meaning, as though all the Earth was plankton in the presence of a whale. It moved with a shambling, unwholesome motion that had nothing to do with clumsiness, gathering speed. A mountain walked or stumbled! Toward the City, toward the Well. Toward the end of the world.

[ooc: goddamndoomchat is open on AIM if anyone's interested! There are some people fighting the Emissary who have not been slotted into threads yet; we will work those out as we go along! The raid against Illidan in Central Park will be posted by Jill later. Have fun everybody!]

Comments

HARBOUR [Orin, Namor, Eridan]

[fakethulhu.livejournal.com]

The monster’s arrival would have been impossible to miss even if the City hadn’t been forewarned days in advance by its various seers and prophets. Even as Emissary towered above the harbour and announced Itself with Its reprehensible slobbering and began to advance on the City, It was immediately opposed.

[amphibiously.livejournal.com]

Orin had never seen anything like it before, and he stood awed on one of the harbor piers for a second, before leaping lightly into the water and heading for the thing with long, fearless strokes. He knew there'd be no reasoning with it, no debate and no love and no compassion from it, and he knew even as he tried to reach his mind out towards it that a telepathic move like that was reckless in the extreme.

As soon as he felt the pull at his sanity, he withdrew fast and sprang up out of the water to engage the thing.

BATTERY PARK – SHORE [Iron Man, Hellboy, Ms. Marvel, Kuwabara]

[fakethulhu.livejournal.com]

Larger and larger waves began to slam against the shore of the park (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Battery_Park.JPG) as the Emissary drew closer, whipping up the water through the immense motion of Its limbs. It loomed larger and larger over the land as though it was itself a monstrously great wave, about to break and sweep away the City. Yet before it could set its vile feet upon the ground, there were four more who stood against it.

[liverletdie]

Well. He'd heard the warnings from Namor, so he'd been prepared for something pretty bad, but this? No, definitely not this. He'd sent a quick call to Carol, because he definitely needed some kind of back up against this kind of nightmare. So from Starktech it was a quick flight off the roof, and toward Battery Park. He wasn't going to let this thing go too far, at least not if he could help it. The quick flight was punctuated by a quick data dump into his brain about what he was looking at. Lovecraftian in nature, which meant, oh. That's right. Madness. Just perfect. Nothing to do but try and avoid that as best he could. So Iron Man went in flying blind and deaf, using satellite data to guide his movements toward the squid-esque horror.

BATTERY PARK – INTERIOR [Ysera, Santo, Black Bolt, Kyo]

[fakethulhu.livejournal.com]

The Earth itself seemed to tremble and quiver beneath the unearthly footfalls of the Thing that now tread upon it. Wherever the Emissary touched the ground of the park, It left immense misshapen footprints bubbling with corrupted seawater and toxic ichor. Trees were splintered and paths stomped out of existence as the Park’s beauty fell victim to the Emissary’s ravening for destruction. If It was to be stopped before the City shared a similar fate, this was the place.

[ofthedream.livejournal.com]

The earth beneath the Ancient Thing shuddered as it advanced... and then erupted as massive roots surged up like living, writhing things to wrap around it's legs and reach even higher to try to bind it in place. These were roots unlike any this world has ever known; strong as steel, they were as big around as a city bus and studded with massive, impaling thorns to grip it's vile flesh.

At the same time, all along the waterfront and out in the harbor itself, another army of creatures appeared out of thin air. But these weren't creatures of chaos and destruction; these were the protectors of Nature itself. Great and small (http://capeandcowlooc.livejournal.com/2087264.html?thread=81653600#t81653600), they spread out to destroy the abominations that crawled out of the abyss in the wake of the Ancient Evil. Some of the largest, giants of stone and metal, hefted great boulders to hurl at the Emissary, or entire fallen trees to use as great spears.

And above them all, Ysera launched herself from the roof of the skyscraper she'd been waiting on in elven form. It had been a risk to let it on land, but she'd be stronger here than in the sea. She'd known it was coming and had done her best to prepare for this battle. The dreams of the entire City had warned her that something beyond the Cycle was coming. She'd even set aside concern for the building magics in Central Park around the Well to prepare for the Beast. She would not let the Old Gods devour this world.

Massive dragon wings boomed open as she roared her challenge to the vile abomination and snarled, "Begone, servant of madness, or I will send you back to the Dark Beyond, myself!"

FINANCIAL DISTRICT [Wesley, Sofia, ?, ?]

[fakethulhu.livejournal.com]

Now the City itself had begun to bear the brunt of the onslaught. The Emissary did not discriminate or waver in Its movement, storming into the skyscrapers and office buildings blocking Its way and tearing them into crumbling rubble with ease. Its steps left cracked pavement and shattered sewers in Its wake along with toppled streetlights and broken glass. If anything the Emissary was moving with more eagerness now, for It was getting closer and closer to the magical beacon that is drawing It- the power being emitted by Illidan Stormrage in Central Park, calling forth the doom of the Earth.

[faithful_servant]

Wesley had dealt with Apocalypses before, but that was on his own familiar turf and while he had been her a number of months he was still far from familiar with the city as a whole. He did know enough that if this Thing was heading for Midtown then he should do his damnedest to make sure it didn't make it there. There were a few screaming civilians running about in madness, but he could waste the energy to try and shield them as well as himself through his magic. Natural magic was never easy for him so he had to concentrate to erect a barrier to keep out the flying debris and that was when he felt it...

Dark. Very dark and very powerful. Perhaps Zatanna had been right in her estimation of his abilities or perhaps this foreign magic was just that strong. It was wrong and he knew it, but it was so much easier for him to tap into that darkness within. Sweat forming on his brow he unleashed a wall of fire.

MIDTOWN MANHATTAN [Zatanna, Snape, ?, ?]

[fakethulhu.livejournal.com]

This was it. The final barrier, the last chance at salvation. The Emissary was finally starting to show the toll fighting through so many heroes and champions had taken, moving more sluggishly and unsteadily, unable to ignore the many superpowered attacks Its mighty form had been subjected to.

Yet it was so close, so very close! The street of Central Park South beckoned beyond the shops and homes and cultural landmarks It was about to demolish beneath Its bulk. Beyond that was Illidan, the Well, and the final end of all things. Everything came down to whether the remaining heroes could finish what the other defenders had started, and hold back the Emissary long enough for Illidan to be defeated.

[hexappeal]

Zatanna hadn't been around for the early stages of the fight; she was too busy rushing to the aid of the remaining citizens and teleporting anyone she could out of the City at the last minute. Thankfully, teleportation was never too taxing on her and she was able to arrive and do her best to protect anyone within her range from its ability to drive a person mad.

Her first course of action is, while floating about, to trying to get it to pots and when it doesn't, well, that's when the fun begins. She weaves back and forth, trying to find anything that looks like a weak spot. All she can think of is to aim for the eyes, hitting it with earth elemental spells, large rocks appearing from nowhere, whirring past her head and to the creature itself.


[ooc: Still can't do AIM chatrooms!! Please feel free to IM me one-on-one, PM, or plurk me! Also, yeah. I was tracking the logs comm because I was certain I'd miss this being posted...]

AGAINST THE SPAWN OF THE EMISSARY

[fakethulhu.livejournal.com]

Like froth before a wave, hundreds of misshapen abominations arose from the water (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Xzv7AdV2TGE/TgxVsco40hI/AAAAAAAAAa8/FKXK0Krc2uk/s1600/CthulhuSpawn.jpg) and stormed onto the land (http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs51/f/2009/339/d/f/Cthulhu_Spawn_by_ianllanas.jpg) of the City while their great Master was still wading towards the Apocalypse. There was no uniformity to their grotesque forms, for they were the Spawn of chaos itself, implacably and mercilessly hostile to the very concepts of reason and consistency.

While they were all essentially miniature versions of the massive Thing in the Harbour, some ran on four legs while others shambled on two or glided on loathsome bat-wings on their backs. Some were larger than the others, some spewed toxic slime at their targets as well as lashing out with inhuman strength, some had revoltingly soft and rubbery flesh while others were armoured beneath blue-green scales, but they were all united by their one overriding reason for existence. The demon Spawn existed only to kill and kill and kill, and as they stormed into the City it was only with the goal of indiscriminate destruction.

They heaved parked cars up off the streets and hurled them into buildings, tore open doors and shattered windows in search of defenceless flesh to devour. Wherever they found life they pounced on it to tear and shred, and wherever they found an absence of prey they contented themselves with smashing and ruining all they could. They gibbered deliriously throughout their horrific revelry, exulting in the coming slaughter. The entire metropolis would serve as a charnel sacrifice to prelude the cataclysm that was about to be unleashed. So it was that the Spawn of the Emissary tore into the City and its defenders with the eagerness of feasters who know that the main course was just about to come.

Open

[out_of_time]

No point in using the helicopter this time- too many of these hostiles were getting indoors as they smashed their way into buildings and tunnels. Combating these monsters was going to be brutal close-quarters combat on the ground, house by house and street by street.

With almost the entire native police force engaged trying to empty the City of its populace, Jack tore into the fray on his own. Throughout that night he could be found roaring up and down Spawn-infested streets in his SUV with lights flashing and sirens wailing, shooting, chasing- and more than once being chased, as he quickly discovered that these damned things were as tough as they were many.

[ooc: I will be slow tagging with Jack since NPC tags and plot questions will be taking priority!]

OPEN

[glowsferatu]

[ in a fight like this, hopelessly outnumbered by a swarm of enemies, kanaya had a few things going for her. one her own, she wasn't a poor fighter, she had her fists, her fangs, her chainsaw, so when met face-to-face with an enemy of this caliber, she had everything she needed to dispatch it quickly. in facing more than one, her speed and portals also helped, allowing her to misdirect and redirection the flow of the battle. most importantly, perhaps, she had a lack of concern for personal harm to give her enough of a morale boost to throw herself against so many foes without so much as a flinch. too many others to under that threat today.

and so she'd hop from demonspawn to demonspawn, ripping through them as she could, and generally making a mess of her new Official Team Space jacket, and the little fairy wings she wore with it. someone let a small girl on the front line, and she was doing her damnedest to slow the advance, but there were just too many of them ]

Open

[theteenofsteel.livejournal.com]

Well, looks like Halloween wasn't going to be much fun this year. "Why do we have to get stuck with a bad party instead of good one on one of my favorite holidays?" Conner said to Krypto as they flew towards the monsters that were destroying things around the City.

Krypto let out a woof of warning and Conner just barely managed to dodge out of the way of a car being thrown in his direction. "Hey!" he yelled at the monster who had thrown it, picking up the car and smashing it down over the thing's head. "It's not nice to break things that aren't yours!"

... Hey, it was already ruined by the time he was using it so.

OPEN

[someonetoscold]

Flint wasn't about to skip town, which was a bad idea, really. He hadn't been in the City long enough to take the prophesies and dreams seriously, and he blew off evacuating, overestimating his abilities.

Flint wasn't about to go charging in and defend the city, but when the spawn found him, he had to go on the defense. And defend he did, but he was having difficulty with the pair of spawn who had attacked him. One seemed to bounce back from hits from his sand hammers, the other spewed slime - he quickly learned that despite his capabilities, him and toxic slime did not mix well.

He was losing sand and the battle, fast. But whenever he tried to get away, he seemed to run into others. And others. Was there no end to these freaky things? He was seriously getting tired of this.

Open

[hellionated]

[ There was no other word for it. These things were disgusting. It seemed to Julian that there was fighting everywhere, and everyone seemed busy. He'd completely lost track of where Sofia had gone, and he knew he had to find her, but he was surrounded by these ugly little things that seemed to want nothing more than to break the City.

Well, if it was force they wanted, Julian could give it to them. He was lashing out angrily and almost indiscriminately, blowing them back with telekinesis and aiming to physically rip them apart. ]

Get. Out. Of. My. Way.

[ His eyes are flashing with green light and his body is surrounded by a luminous aura that strikes out and throws spawn away from him. ]

open

[comesback.livejournal.com]

Jack wasn't one to run. Especially not when there were things of the fun misshapen abomination type coming in the near future! So once he'd seen the chaos running rampant in the City, Jack had promptly grabbed the mini, headed for the MAC, and picked up Zevran and Ianto.

Now, the three of them had stopped on a likely looking street, and Jack raced out of the car with a laugh.

"Hey, ugly!" He shouted at a creature that was midway through taking down an apartment building, and fired a few shots off in its general direction. "C'mere and pick on someone that's armed, why don't you?"

Open

[a_relative_hero]

Houston had very little idea what he was doing. His uniform just felt wrong that night and he wasn't particularly useful on his own against most of the spawn. He'd gotten himself a nice metal bat to help against the spawn though and it was proving rather effective. Smacking something several hundred times in the space of one second tended to hurt it.

Right now, he's dodging and zipping around a few of the spawn that had been ripping apart the doors of a hospital. Mostly he's trying to avoid getting caught but he's seizing every chance he has to make them hit each other while they try to get him.

"This is so not good!"

oh so very OPEN after the tl;dr

[notadartboard]

Sanji didn't really pay a lot of heed to predictions, because even in a world full of powers it wasn't a guarantee - at least, the way he saw it. Yet, he wasn't completely dismissing the possibility that something could go down. And as the week wore on, one thing occurred to him: if a big nasty creature the size of a sea king really did come up out of the water and start wrecking the place, it would likely destroy the building downtown with the machine.

The machine that would send them all home.

He could not take the risk of having their only way home destroyed. He could not stay here forever.

And so, around eleven or so, he double-checked his last preparations and headed out on a long walk. Robin was with Rapunzel, the Dream of Blue had been moved to a harbor further inland, and everyone he knew who was still staying in the City was well-fed at his hands. All that was left was to go and have a look at whether anything would arrive that evening as prophesied. With most of the city deserted, the only way to go was on foot, but that was how Sanji liked it. Running all over the city was his primary means of training, and so it went tonight. He ran his hardest down to the Porter building, and from there, took it at a slower amble in the direction of the harbor. Strategically speaking, it didn't matter exactly where he joined the fight, so long as he placed himself between the enemy and the Porter. Then, come what may.

Sanji heard them before he saw them. The ground trembled, and the screech and blabber of the creatures echoed off the buildings. It was chilly, but not frosty, a nice night to be fighting. The cigarette in the cook's lips was his second of the night so far, and he had a full pack in his coat pocket. He stopped where he was and waited for them to come, not caring that he was alone. He was smart enough to know whether to stand, whether to run, whether he was in over his head or not. Even without any kind of concerted defense effort, there had to be others around also preparing to fight what was coming. If he needed them, he would find them, one way or the other.

The first demonspawn came around a corner on all fours like a great lumbering rhino, perhaps it smelled his warm blood or something. Sanji was stunned momentarily, beholding it for the first time, and then disgusted and annoyed. But secretly, deep down, he was also excited. He had gone for so long without a good fight. A good, tough opponent, a real thing he could sink his feet into, something that had to go down at all costs. He could do this. He had to. Not just to go home, but to get stronger. There was someone counting on him, after all. He stood there unmoved as the thing screeched to a halt and then turned toward him, regarding him for a moment before charging. It came on alarmingly fast, but Sanji still waited. At the right moment he sprang up into the air, letting it pass beneath him, and then suddenly his foot was in its back at full force. He added a spin as soon as he felt the connect, drilling it into the street with a furious Brochette. He sprang away to see if that was enough, but the flailing thing had a tail and a second later he was swept off his feet unexpectedly, crashing into a building. Yet, Sanji, too, could take a hit and keep coming, and so he did, bursting out from the hail of rubble and plowing a foot into the thing's side before it could get up.

And this was only the start. There was a long night ahead.

OPEN

[shotyoudeadbang]

This is one of those times where Floyd Lawton is especially pleased with the design of his Deadshot mask, because these monsters are so goddamned ugly that he wouldn't ever want to look at them if it wasn't through a gunsight.

Even he's feeling a pretty nasty chill at the looming, hulking form of the Emissary in the distance, like a moving mountain, but to his credit, he comes from a dimension full of world-breaking aliens. So there's at least some experience to draw on to keep his cool.

He spent a good deal of time perched on a rooftop with a sniper rifle, taking careful aim and shooting a lot of the bat-winged motherfuckers out of the sky - and he'd be lying if he said there wasn't some extra satisfaction in that given how messed up he gets about actually trying to kill Batman. He racked up a hell of a kill count, until one of them came spiraling down into the building he was on, forcing a hasty evacuation... which hilariously involved leaping onto the head of one of the groundwalkers and sliding down his back and tail like he was Fred Goddamned Flintstone. Although he made sure to turn right around and perforate the back of the thing's skull to drop it on its face.

Now, Deadshot is in the street, strapped with rifles and ammo and venting frustrations on these monsters... when he's not scrambling for his life from the ones that don't respond that well to being shot.

Open

[daddysoldmysoul.livejournal.com]

There were times where invisibility was a very strong asset: Fights were one of them. Stepping out of the world for just long enough to get close without being noticed before stepping in and unleashing a slice of flames out at the gibbering horrors before stepping back again to avoid the counter swing.

It was just exhausting and each step back made the step back in harder.

This was so much easier when he had a party to back him up...

Open

[lyingbrat.livejournal.com]

Lyra was not having a good night. She'd chased one of the creatures out of Awesome Base and had taken to the sky, trying to get an idea of what was going on as she tried to fight back the mounting terror that was filling her and her daemon. Pantalaimon floating beside her, her hands went to her knives as she bit her lip and thought about Toph and Vivi and everyone she'd ever met in the City, and what they were doing right now. Pantalaimon's sudden alarm broke her train of thought, as five... things rose up from the city on slimy wings, and Lyra dodged out of the way, flinging her knives at the creatures before using telekinesis to recall the knives and send them out again, weaving through the air in a barely controlled panic as she did so.

Open

[notlikeanyone]

Red Robin might not be able to take on the full might of the Emissary Itself, as a giant tentacle monster of eldritch power is a little outside the remit of Hitting Things With Martial Arts And Human Strength, but the more human-sized Spawn are closer to his comfort zone. Not that anything about this event is anything but discomforting - Tim has read Lovecraft, and once or twice his gaming group had run a Call of Cthulu game, although they mostly stuck to D&D. Right about now, he's wishing that he'd paid more attention to how to make and employ an Elder Sign, but it's something he'll have to remedy later - if he gets the chance.

He's laying into the Spawn with his staff, using skill and the extra force afforded by his City-given superspeed to both inflict damage and evade it where he can. Since the creatures obviously aren't human, and can take a lot of damage, he isn't holding back.

OPEN

[computed.livejournal.com]

[ It was times like this that Jensen really wished he was better trained with a sniper rifle than he is. Sure, he can shoot it, but considering the team had Cougar, that was never priority number one. Still, when running through a pack of these monsters, shooting at any you were within range of, having a gun you could aim from a longer distance would have been nice.

But you know, having a gun at all was making the whole experience a lot more bearable. If he lived through this, he had a little girl to think for giving him the name of where to buy them. She hadn't been kidding when she'd hinted at him needing them. ]

NONCOMBATANT [Evacuation, civilian assistance, and simple hiding]

[fakethulhu.livejournal.com]

Despite the entire manpower of the City’s police force and the ample assistance of superhuman heroes, the evacuation of millions had not entirely been completed during the scant six days since the Mayor had issued the order. It was all coming down to the last minute now. Even with the Thing advancing and the Spawn rampaging there were still innocents in need of salvation in the City, along with those who sought only to keep themselves and their loved ones safe from harm through this night of inhuman howling and quivering fear. They could do little else but try to save themselves or hope to be saved, and wait to find out whether the Sun would still rise tomorrow.

OPEN

[blondevigilante]

Batgirl had lost her bike somewhere on Fifth and had taken to the roofs. Occasionally she came across one of those weird monster things and god she hoped that 'No Kill' rule only applied to humanoids, but mostly she sought out those who had been too stubborn to leave or maybe just unable. She had the shadows on her side and could easily avoid attention. Slipping into an already crumbling building she hit the night-vision and searched.

"Please tell me I'm the only one dumb enough to still be in this place!"